Spent a good portion of my evening tonight in the Microsoft offices in Times Square, NYC. I was Working with Zack of Royal N Games (go follow their Facebook and Twitter) to Promote the game we’ve been working on, Deathbot Derby. keep an eye out for the hashtag #TestYourMetal

Long ago, disgruntled fans mourned the cancelation of their favorite robot fighting T.V. show, and took to the underground. Void of caution or regard for public safety, contenders began to build incredible machines of destruction and pit them against each other in one on one death matches. And so was born…
The DeathBot Derby!

In DeathBot Derby players build their bots using a quick card drafting mechanism and then face off in an ever changing arena. They will have to strategically move and attack their opponent to gain the tactical advantage. The winning DeathBot goes home a champion, and the loser goes back to the scrap heap they came from.

Deathbot Derby is in the last of it’s Beta stage as we are ironing out the final details, and will be running a kickstarter to fund the game in October of 2016. All in all tonight’s event was to share what we’ve been making with some gamers, and we were fortunate enough to have a lot of people swing by the booth to check it out, play, and have good times. The event had over 700 people in attendance, and so many various games ranging from board and card games, to mobile apps, and full on console and computer games, all from independent companies. The variety of options to play was incredible, but more so was the top quality of a lot of the games there. On top of that, almost every single person I saw there seemed to be happy and having a great time (gamers and the game creators), so definitely a successful evening. We may be doing another event with the Playcrafting group in October. (Be sure to follow Royal N Games on their social media pages for announcements regarding that)

Zach showcasing some of the robot component cards to a new fan.

James Groeling and Zach Connelly with the Deathbot Derby banner

More images from the event will be available on Royal N Games Facebook, so be sure you’re following, also keep an eye out for the earlybird access for the kickstarter campaign in October.

Welcome, as we embark on another story in the city of JDGAF. Hope you enjoy.

“JDGAF is a series of storylines featuring ever-the-oddball random events in the lives of a growing cast of characters. The location of these tales is the fictional city of JDGAF, which is something of a magnet for mutants, aliens, monsters, dieties, and people who do not quite conform to the norm. Needless to say, it is a place that seldom lacks in something interesting happening. Come, be a part of it, and welcome to JDGAF.”

Here’s some promotions to spread the word and get more support for the comic. Please like, share, and follow.

Website: Also, I may have mentioned this already, but there is a second page that is just for these stories, you can find that here at JDGAF comics.

Tapastic.com: Also, just put together an account on Tapastic, a webcomic community, if you use that, please add JDGAF on there.

Facebook: Most of us have a facebook page by now, so if you enjoy these stories, please show your support on there by liking the page JDGAF Comics.

Twitter: And, you may as well keep up on all the little news bits, and teaser notes and pictures that I share from Instagram here on twitter as well.

Happy March everyone. So, if you’ve been following my posts on various social media sites, you’ve noticed I’ve been prepping for two major events, the first, was the conclusion of issue two of my comic book titled “Gauntlet”. We just put out a 1.0 version as a short run release for MegaCon in Florida, however will be redoing the cover, and adding the stories to the compilation book that weren’t finished for print. It’s going to be awesome, but I can’t share too much from the release just yet (I may sneak out some images later this month)

The second big event, was finishing up some pieces for the Fountain Art Fair, in which I was showing in the Greyegg presents booth with a number of other fantastic artists of various media and styles. The history of the location is that 100 years ago at the same armory, was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, which featured a number of artists of the time period from Cezanne to Picasso. So I’ve now shared a piece of history with these greats 3 times (this being my third armory showing)

The pieces I put into this were mostly new, and smaller pieces, including a number of the vinyl figures that I’ve posted before, as well as ten small wooden panel pieces, and a large skateboard featuring a mildly terrifying clown. The reason for the pieces being carnival themed was that the booth’s theme was that of a carnival. Here are a couple shots of just our booth, taken to share.

Consider that most of the show the booth was packed, as well as the surrounding area,… pretty much most of the building. It was a great showing of pieces by all involved, with some really amazing artwork. Thank you to Greyegg, and to all the other artists showing in the booth who made it a successful venture for all, and an amazingly fun weekend as well.

Tuesday of this previous week I started an illustration project for Brutal Bitches Productions, a metal music concert organizing company based out of the Bronx. Was told to do something with a sexy metal chick, surrounded by carnage. But had to do it in a way that there would be enough room for the band logos and event info to not completely block the imagery.
Send one sketch, that was rejected, so then sent this one as a thumbnail, and got an okay to work with it.

“Just make it sexy, add some decapitations, and monsters, okay?”

I think I should have no problem with that, *wicked smile*. Have I mentioned that I love what I do?

Next step was some rough sketching and then adding ballpoint linework over the pencil so I could erase and have a clean working surface, so that line art became this….

The original idea was to stick to a mostly black and white image to make it very bold, and include some splashes of color, so I started working in my shading using varying grays. Pretty much just acrylic washes of payne’s gray to build up what I wanted it to look like in a basic sense.

Then,… well it was decided that full color would be so much cooler as the band logos look pretty crazy in color and the illustration had to work with them and not be completely obscured by them. So started laying in color washes over the gray shading, and that ended up coming out along these lines.

A few more washes to close out some of the white spots and darken some spots I wanted to set back, and then the next real part was the outlines in micron on the things that were more foreground prevalent. Basically the outlines on the figure (Metal Goddess) and her hair were in black micron, which is basically like a really fine tipped marker for line art. The background buildings and figures got touched up with more ballpoint so as not to compete too much with the foreground.

The last thing I did before sending it off to BBP was to adjust the levels digitally so the dark parts were even darker and the color a little sharper. For illustration projects I generally go this route, because that way I’m not physically working everything so dark that it can’t be changed if necessary.

After sending the file on Thursday, yes Tuesday night til Thursday morning, was a quick turnaround for this piece (read: very little sleep) had to wait til today to see the fully edited version. With the colors and the logos it looks pretty sick indeed. All in all cool project with a fun conclusion. Hopefully the event is as metal as the poster. \m|_ Like BrutalBitchesOnFacebook _|m/

Tomorrow in wiliamsburg will be the last show of the season for the summer music and art gatherings put in by Music-Kin. I’ll be showing some work there with a number of great artists, enjoying brunch and drink while listening to live music. Come out and celebrate the closing of the season, enjoy art, and what is supposed to be a beautiful day.
See you there.

This has taken a long time to get around to doing. In case you’d not realized, I’m much more happy drawing, painting, and getting generally messy doing projects. Not so much about sitting in front of the computer and setting up pages and building online storefronts. I’ve realized however that it is a necessity, and am working on getting these things created. The FB page I’ll probably build into a contact bar on this site, along with my deviantart page. The shop, I’m currently setting up on Etsy and should be up and fully functional with at least a decent stock to start off within the next few days.
Check back soon for links to those, and maybe one day, once I’ve gotten the hang of all this social networking on the digital front, maybe one day I’ll have a twitter,….. shudders*. Haha.
More art coming up soon as well. Thanks

This past Sunday I was part of a great event put on by Music-Kin at Spike Hill in Brooklyn, kicking off their start to the weekly Sunday events.

The venue was great, the food and drinks were great, the atmosphere was perfect and relaxed for a summer Sunday. The music was absolutely fantastic, and I’d not expected the quality of talented artists and musicians who would be part of this. Frankly, I was incredibly, pleasantly surprised. Thank you Music-Kin for having me, and I look forward to being a part of future events with you guys.
Also note, these events are running at Spike Hill, every Sunday of the summer, no entry costs, just go and enjoy the show, have some great food and good times with friends. Do eeet, y’know you wanna.

A shot giving you an idea of the venue, the back end has more space, and there is another full bar and seating area through a door at the end of the chalkboard bar menu.

Some artist guy at the event answering questions about the art. Not sure who he is, but lookin classy in that shirt buddy…… (hint: it’s me)